Artificial streaming in music refers to the practice of artificially inflating the number of streams or plays that a particular song or artist receives on digital streaming platforms. The practice of artificially inflating the number of streams a song receives on digital platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music, or YouTube. This can be done through various means, including bots, click farms, or other automated methods, with the intention of boosting the song’s popularity and visibility.
Artificial streaming can have various motivations, including boosting an artist’s perceived popularity, increasing royalties, or manipulating chart rankings. However, it can distort the true popularity and success of songs and artists, and it violates the terms of service of most streaming platforms. Streaming platforms employ various measures to detect and prevent artificial streaming, including algorithms to identify abnormal streaming patterns, manual review processes, and collaborations with third-party companies specializing in fraud detection. Platforms may penalize artists and users found to be engaging in artificial streaming by removing streams or taking other actions.
GUIDE TO AVOID ARTIFICIAL STREAMING
In our ongoing effort to fight Artificial Streaming, Highvibes Music distribution Company has embarked on an educational campaign for music artists and their teams to regulate legitimate music distribution and streaming. Our effort to combat this phenomenon revolves around updated monthly Artificial Streaming reports from Digital Streaming Platforms.
CAUSES OF ARTIFICIAL STREAMS
The streaming services work diligently to ensure streams reflect genuine user listening intent. Unfortunately, that is not always the case. Artificial Streaming can result from any of the following causes:
- Fraudulent behavior (when someone is trying to increase the stream count in order to obtain more royalties)
- Naivete with using so-called marketing/playlisting services which use unauthorized methods to generate streams.
- Ricochet AS:when fraudsters play random tracks in order to appear like normal users. In such cases, you or your client are not the instigators of the AS, but random victims. DSPs are aware of this phenomenon and will not usually take action against your assets unless the number of AS becomes significant.
- Bot Networks: Some individuals or companies create networks of bots programmed to continuously stream specific songs or artists, artificially boosting their play counts.
- Click Farms: Click farms are operations where individuals are paid to perform tasks online, including streaming songs on various platforms. This can lead to inflated stream counts.
- Playlist Manipulation: Artists or their teams may pay or collaborate with playlist curators to include their songs in popular playlists. This can lead to increased streams, but it’s not always transparent whether these streams are genuine.
- Stream Farms: Similar to click farms, stream farms are set up to manipulate streaming numbers through various means, including automated streaming or employing individuals to stream songs continuously.
PENALTIES OF ARTIFICIAL STREAMING
Regardless of the cause of your reported AS, the result is the same in all cases:
- The related tracks’ streaming count will not be incremented for any AS
- The related tracks will be blacklisted from all official playlists
- The DSP will take down the associated release(s) from their service, in the case of Apple, Pandora, and sometimes for Spotify, this is a permanent takedown.
- Spotify only: for any track that Spotify identifies as having 90% or more AS, Spotify will charge the artist through your distributor a fine of 10 EUR .
- The DSP will withhold royalties for all such AS
AVOIDING ARTIFICIAL STREAMS
It is imperative for all artists and their teams to avoid any paid or unpaid services that guarantee streams or playlist placements. These services probably use illegitimate practices without the artist or their team’s knowledge. Be sure to understand how important it is to avoid using bots, click farms, or any pay-to-play schemes. These services can threaten your hard work and put your catalog and account at risk.
Overall, while artificial streaming may provide short-term benefits, it can damage the integrity of the music industry and harm genuine artists and listeners in the long run. Therefore, it’s essential for streaming platforms and industry stakeholders to continue developing effective strategies to combat this practice.
Please further note that repeated AS activity from your catalog may be cause for limiting or canceling your access to certain DSPs, and may ultimately result in the termination of your account as required by our need to protect our account’s standing with the DSP.
